warhammer40kfandomcom-20200222-history
Grey Knights Apothecary
A Grey Knights Apothecary is a specialist officer of the Grey Knights Space Marine Chapter who possesses advanced biomedical and scientific training and who serves as a combat medic and research physician for his Chapter. An Apothecary's role in battle is to recover the gene-seed from slain Astartes and to tend to the wounded and maimed. Outside of combat, Apothecaries are responsible for monitoring the Chapter's Neophytes for mutation or flaws in their gene-seed and organ implants and for carrying out the implantation process in their Chapter's Aspirants. The Apothecary is well-versed in the arts of battlefield first aid as well as advanced surgical techniques, cybernetics and bio-engineering. The Apothecary must be as courageous as his fellow Space Marines if not more so, for he must perform his life-saving surgeries in the midst of the battlefield. If a Space Marine is injured, the Apothecary will use his medi-pack, called the Narthecium, to tend to his wounds. Even severely injured Space Marines can fight again with the aid of the Narthecium. Role Space Marine Apothecaries are charged with maintaining the bodily health of their Battle-Brothers, whether this is monitoring their genetically engineered implants or administering emergency medical attention on the field of battle. Only the bravest of warriors are chosen for this honoured duty, for each must look first and foremost to the health of his companions, and consider his own life as secondary. Apothecaries are at once mighty warriors and selfless servants, and each would fight their way through hordes of vile enemies to reach a fallen Battle-Brother and then transfuse the very last drop of his own blood to save the life of the wounded. The Apothecary's role in a Space Marine Chapter is to serve as both a battlefield medic and a biomedical researcher. Along with being highly trained in the fields of medicine, surgery and medical research, they are amongst the elite warriors in the Chapter. Few Battle-Brothers are as important to the Chapter's future as an Apothecary. It is his task to tend to fallen Battle-Brothers, healing them with his Narthecium, or reclaiming the Progenoid Glands -- and the precious gene-seed within -- with his Reductor should the wounds be too severe. Without Apothecaries, the Grey Knights' genetic heritage would be lost amid the ruin of battle, and the Chapter would cease to exist within a matter of decades. Thus do the Apothecaries receive the foremost guardians the Chapter can provide. On those occasions in which one of the Grey Knights' Apothecaries takes to the battlefield, his protection will be given over to a squad of Paladins. Wargear *'Aegis Power Armour' *'Diagnostor Helmet' - Apothecaries often replace their usual helmet with a Diagnostor Helmet, which contains upgraded Auto-senses and readouts to assist with their charge of treating the injured and maintaining their Battle-Brothers’ physical combat readiness. *'Chainsword' *'Wrist-mounted Storm Bolter' *'Frag Grenades and Krak Grenades' *'Psyk-Out Grenades' *'Narthecium' - The tool of an Apothecary’s trade, a Narthecium contains implements specially designed for Space Marine physiology and for performing first aid without having to remove the patient’s Power Armour. It also comprises various counterseptics, skin patches, transfusions and other compounds engineered for the Space Marines’ physiology, and several stasis tubes for storing recovered gene-seed. *'Reductor' - Retrieval and storage of a fallen Battle-Brother’s gene-seed is so critical that Apothecaries carry a special tool for this operation. While a Reductor is not required for Progenoid removal, it significantly reduces the time. This surgical implement fastens under the wrist. It includes a monomolecular saw for penetrating Power Armour and Ossmodula-enhanced rib cages, and a diamantine-tipped extractor drill, as well as a spring-loaded piston to administer the Emperor's Peace to a critically wounded brother. *''Liber Daemonica'' - The Liber Daemonica is an enduring symbol of the Grey Knight's devotion to his mission, and contains the cardinal tenets of lore culled from the dark knowledge caged within the Sanctum Sanctorum's walls. Every Grey Knight carries a copy of the Liber Daemonica in a Ceramite case on his breastplate. These gnarled tomes contain the Chapter's rites of battle and detail the traditional duties of every Grey Knights' rank. The books themselves are also potent psychic talismans in their own right, with pages illuminated in silver and bound to a spine carved from the thigh bone of a martyred saint. Psychic Powers *''Hammerhand'' - Focusing the raging power of their minds, Grey Knights can augment their already prodigious might. Even unarmed, such a warrior can crush flesh and bone in close combat -- given blade or warhammer there is little limit to what they can slay. Notable Grey Knights Apothecaries *'Apothecary Glaivan' - Glaivan was ancient, one of the few Grey Knights currently in the Chapter who had reached the extended old age a Space Marine's enhancements could grant him. Glaivan's hands had been replaced long before with bionic armatures that gave him a surgical touch far finer than human hands, and his splayed fingers were tipped with scalpels and pincers. Grey Knights usually wore their Power Armour when outside their cells or at worship, but Glaivan had long since left his battlegear behind. Beneath his long white Apothecary's robes his body was braced with steel and brass, and his redundant organs had been removed to leave Glaivan a cybernetic shell of an Astartes. His face was long and so heavily lined it was hard to believe that he had once been a younger man. Glaivan was more than four hundred years standard old, all but the first handful of those having been spent in service to the Grey Knights and the Ordo Malleus. Source *''Codex: Adeptus Astartes - Grey Knights'' (8th Edition), pp. 37, 53, 75 *''Codex: Grey Knights'' (5th Edition), pg. 30 *''Grey Knights'' (Novel) by Ben Counter Category:G Category:Grey Knights Category:Imperium Category:Inquisition Category:Ordo Malleus Category:Space Marines